well, i had mine as a gift, so i'm not going to change it in the near future. altough i'd like having an android phone (because i hate apple restrictions) i have to say that the iphone is a pretty cool device.

So despite all the things it can do, the things it can't is a deal breaker. Besides, Apple isn't a computer company they are a content company, almost every piece of hardware and software they sell is centered around selling content (music, apps, books, video etc). Its like buying a TV, but you can only get service for it from one provider and they charge what they want. Paying a premium for that doesn't make sense.

The main reason I don't own an iPhone is I use Verizon and I among god knows how many would be an iPhone user long ago if we had that option.

The second reason I don't now and most likely never will is that Apple created a hole (only AT&T hole) and Android filled it. I'm about to buy the HTC Incredible and now that their is a "more open" option I'll seriously doubt I'll ever own an iPhone. Same reason I never owned a Mac and Windows dominates them. Some want it super simple, most want it super usable.

I had one, I dumped it. My vote now goes to android, meego, or symbian! and my current phone is a Symbian. Apple gets some free press regardless of their Minuses. no other platform receives such free publicity. the future is open, open standards where people will not be locked into vendor specifications. iphone is probably the worst when it comes to openness!

I had tried the iPhone 3G & 3Gs, while both were nice phones I don't think they're all that. I think the iPhone is the most over hyped phone out there. People own them cause it's the "cool" thing to have, one of those "I have one cause my friends have them!!" type of things.

There's phones out there that does pretty much everything it does and some does more. Yet they get bashed while the iPhone gets praised. Look at the HTC EVO 4G from Sprint. It does everything the iPhone does and does some better. Has better front and back camera's, heard it's video chat was better, etc

I believe Apple tries to trick people into thinking their phone is the first to do things. Like how they said "with the iPhone 4 we brought video chat to the world" while the EVO had it before it. Or how they phrased "with the 3Gs we introduced video recording" yet phones have been doing that for how many years now?

The battery on the Sprint HTC 4G doesn't even last a day. A professor I support (PhD in CS from MIT) returned his after using it for two weeks. The phone was absolutely terrible. The Exchange support on the Android is an abomination and it jumbled many of his Gmail, yes Gmail!, contacts.

You're absolutely right to say that Apple isn't the first to do many things. However, when they do, those features are pretty solid and work well.

Let's face it: It's a tightly coupled design where quality is the most important feature. The Android 2.2 is basically iPhone .5. Android's interface is clunky, counter-intuitive and it's a wildly inconsistent user experience. My wife owns both an HTC Android 2 (work) and an iPhone 3G (personal) and she prefers her iPhone any day of week and twice on Sunday. For all of those who say Apple isn't open, I'd say you are only partially right. Sure, they make developers go through a long approval process, but look at how much better the apps seem to be. Furthermore, the iPhone is built largely on open source! BSD, python, etc. In terms of contributing and supporting open source, look at what they're doing http://www.macosforge.org/. I see quite a few projects there and that page doesn't include what they do for the CUPS project.

Vote up!

0

Vote down!

0

Travis Kepley is a Senior Instructor at Red Hat where he helps employees, partners and customers understand how Open Source Software can create a better IT and business infrastructure. Travis started at Red Hat in January of 2008 as a Technical Support Engineer before becoming a Solutions Architect prior to moving to his current role. Travis graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and now lives in Raleigh with his wife and dog. When not extolling the virtues of open

The opinions expressed on this website are those of each author, not of the author's employer or of Red Hat.

Opensource.com aspires to publish all content under a Creative Commons license but may not be able to do so in all cases. You are responsible for ensuring that you have the necessary permission to reuse any work on this site. Red Hat and the Shadowman logo are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries.